Category: Motor Vehicle Accidents

Being involved in a personal injury case is something that could just as well turn your entire life around. It’s has a long-lasting impact on your overall life and, at the same time, it could cost you quite a lot of money. In emotional and financial distress of the kind, people would quite commonly disregard the possibility of getting professional legal assistance because they tend to believe it’s something they can’t possibly afford. Read More

It’s worth noting that Bus Accident law generally falls within the common carrier law because the majority of buses offer transportation services as part of their business to regular people. The common carrier is an individual or an enterprise which is going to offer transport of people, items or services in return for a fee. The common carriers can be either public entities or private companies. The Federal Government is generally regulating the common carriers which transport passengers and this is with full force over the province of Ontario. Read More

Determining the overall responsibility for an accident or any type of injury could be quite complicated. However, it’s oftentimes much needed in order to determine whether someone was actually careless or particularly negligent. It is quite easy and definitely not enough to say that someone has to pay compensation without the actual legal merits behind it. Here are some of the things to account for. Read More

Car accidents are rather common and, as far as the province of Ontario goes, they are the major cause of personal injury causes. What is more, they are the accident type which causes the most fatalities as well. It is estimated that at least one person dies in an accident every single day in the province of Ontario alone. In any case, you should be very well aware that the moment that you get involved in the accident is particularly important and there is a series of things that you need to do. Read More

If you have been involved in a serious motorcycle or a car accident, it’s highly likely that you are going to need a range of different treatments. Some of them are going to be duly covered by the OHIP Healthcare System of Ontario which means that if you have a valid Health Card, it’s going to be out of charge. This includes seeing a doctor, visiting the hospital and even the treatment through the CCAC (Community Care Access System) are all going to be covered.

OF course, you’d have to go through some paperwork. This is documentation which is submitted to your insurance company in order for it to start paying your treatment. One such plan that you’d have to fill out perfectly is the OCF-18. Keep in mind, that as it is with every single document, you have to be very careful when filling this blank out. If you get something essential wrong, such as your ID, names, address, forget to sign it and things of the kind – the insurance company is not going to start paying for the treatment. That’s why we’ve prepared a few helpful tips that might be of aid.

1.    Start by filling out your date of birth and names, gender, postal code, city, telephone number and postal code. Of course, up until this moment all seems pretty straightforward.

2.    Fill in the name of your insurance company as well as the name of the adjuster and the name of the holder of the claim. This is yet particularly easy as long as you have the right kind of information in front of you.

3.    Now, the next 7 steps are completed by the regulated health care examiner who is going to be completing the form. That’s why you step directly to the 10th point of the form and fill it out. This is also the most overlooked part as people usually gloss over it. This requires you to print and sign your name and fill in the date on the form. However, as it is on the second page, a lot of people tend to overlook it and therefore get their treatment delayed unnecessarily because of this particular mistake.

Everything else regarding your OCF-18 is going to be filled out by your health care provider. In any case, this is amongst the simplest forms that you have to fill out but then again, cautious has to be exercised in order to get it right on the first time. This is going to result in prompt treatment and adequate payments without any unwanted delays and other issues. All you need to do is to be careful and you are good to go. If you are unable to get into the details, take the help of an injury lawyer to ensure that everything has been filled as per requirement and nothing goes wrong if you intend filing for compensation.

The truth is that car accidents are particularly common in the state of Ontario. However, every single one of them is unique and it’s important to take all the circumstances prior to taking any legal actions. With this in mind, if there is a left turn involved in the accident, there is a special point in the Insurance Act of Ontario which comes into the picture and which has to be taken into account. So, without any further ado, let’s take a farther look into the specifications of this regulation and determine the ways it would impact your case.

Insurance Act of 1990

This law stipulates that all left turns into the traffic are actually against the insurance company’s policy if the turn has effectively led to an accident. This means that if you are doing your left turn and you get involved in an accident, you are much more likely to be considered to be the party at fault, regardless of whether that fault is going to be partial or full.

The truth is that seeking compensation for a car accident while you have been doing a left turn might actually be pretty challenging. However, keep in mind that even though your insurance policy won’t apply, you might still not be the faulty driver. The law doesn’t care about insurance as its only purpose is to serve justice. With this in mind, if you are truly not the one causing the accident, you wouldn’t be liable for it. However, this is particularly hard to prove and there are very few situations in which you wouldn’t be liable. The truth is that throughout the left turn you are an effective imposition and you are impairing the natural way of those driving against you in their own lanes. Even if the opposite driver sees you and hits you deliberately, if you are unable to prove that he’s done so on purpose, you would still be liable because you have no right of being there at the time of the accident.

Left Turns Are a Burden

In the majority of cases the driver doing the left turn is truly going to be found at fault and the rules of fault determination and particularly the “no fault” rule wouldn’t apply. This is due to the fact that your insurance policy in this situation is practically nil and you have to bear the responsibility on your own.

This is why you should be particularly careful when you are making a left turn. Ensure that there is way more than just enough time for you to make the maneuver safely without being an imposition for another driver. Staying out of accidents of this type is the best prevention.

However, if you require to be legally represented in the court of law, schedule a consultation with the personal injury lawyer. They will be able to best assist you.

Motorcycle season is already here and it’s important to exercise extra care when driving on the road. You should already know that motorcycles provide absolute no collision protection and the only security you get is offered by your protective gear. However, accidents happen and you should be well aware of how to handle yourself if you’ve been involved in an accident of the kind.

Accidents lead to disputes

The first thing that you’d need to understand is that only about 10% of the accidents lead to a dispute which may be resolved in court. The other 90% are basically resolved on the insurance phase because of the “No-Fault” rules set forth in the province of Ontario, but more on that later. The first thing that you should do when you are involved in a motorcycle accident in Waterloo is to call the police. If the accident is serious they are going to be on their way and they’d be present on the scene. However, if it’s nothing serious you’d get to be re-directed to nearest Collision Report Center where you’d have to file a few papers.

Nevertheless, that’s basically all you have to do, provided that the incident isn’t that serious. The “no-fault” rule would be enforced and you’d receive your compensation directly from your own insurance company. This is how things work because of this particular rule. The “no-fault” rule is set forth in the Insurance Act of Ontario and it stipulates that regardless of whether or not you are at fault, you’d get compensated by your insurance company. Of course, fault is going to be distributed.

This is done by according to and pursuant to the Rules of Fault Determination dully outlined in the same Insurance Act. Under those rules each party would allocated with a fault ratio varying between 0% and 100%. Even though this is not going to be reflected on your compensation, your insurance premiums are going to get increased as of the next year. This is because you’d be pinned as a risky driver and the insurance company would take this into account when calculating your insurance amount.

However, you should also know that if you’ve sustained substantial orthopedic injuries or brain traumas or spinal cord injuries or basically any kind of serious injury in Waterloo – you’d be entitled to pursue the matter to court. If that’s the case, you’d have to file a civil compensatory claim asking for compensation above the one provided to you by the insurance company as per your insurance policy. This is going to trigger a civil court procedure and you might want to contract a personal injury lawyer in Waterloo to handle it. In any case, this is going to take a lot more time and legal expenses as well as lawyer fees, so make sure that it’s well worth it.  It is best to consult a legal firm or an experienced lawyer that has dealt with such cases on a regular basis as they are conversant with all aspects of the law.

Most people contact a personal injury lawyer when the hospital and medical bills are mounting and they are confused about the right insurance company to pay their bills. If you are trying to fathom the answer, it will depend upon whether you were a passenger, driver, pedestrian or a cyclist when the accident took place. Additionally, it will depend whether you have a private health and medical coverage or the medical cover is through your spouse.

Payment of medical bills

You need to know that when you are a passenger or driver in your own car, you need to get the claim from your insurance company. But if you are passenger in a car that is not your own, you will need to claim compensation from the company that had insured that car.In case you were a cyclist or pedestrian, you will have to make a claim from the insurance company which had covered the vehicle that hit you.

Application of the right section of the auto insurance policy

As per the standard vehicle insurance policy in Ontario, under Section B, it is stated that if you have been hurt or injured in a vehicular accident, you can claim $50,000 as medical compensation. This is given within two years from the accident and includes medical costs for surgery, prescription medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy ambulance service, nursing care. You are given the coverage for four years and after that you have to fund your treatment through private insurance or claim it from the person who caused the accident. It is important to understand all aspects of the insurance policy. The auto insurance policy is divided into different sections:

·         Section A of the insurance policy deals with third-party liabilities and it is applicable where you are at fault in an accident and other party is injured/vehicle damaged.

·         Section B is about accident benefits or “no-fault accident benefits”. This is useful when irrespective of who is at fault; you are injured in the accident.

·         Section C is about damage and loss to your vehicle includes theft of vehicle.

Then there is secondary pay coverage or excess insurance, which are the medical expense benefits that you get under the auto insurance policy.  This means that if you have a separate policy under group benefits plan or a private insurance policy cover, that stands as the primary insurer and you will have to submit your expenses to them, before tapping into the Section B of the vehicle insurance. Any expenses that the primary insurer does not cover are then borne by the Section B of the auto insurance company. The category is accident and related injury is covered under medical, death and disability benefits.

Thus, you will need to talk with your personal injury lawyer and then decide on the best course of action. They will be able to help you decide what will work best in your particular case.

Even though personal injury is referred to as a huge division of the law, the fact is that over 90% of the cases in the state of Ontario are settled prior to reaching the courtroom. Most of them are matter of insurance and this is why most of the injury lawyers are generally going to be good at handling out-of-court disputes with representatives of insurance companies. The most important thing that needs to be done is to determine the fault in the situation. Most of these cases involve vehicle accidents.

As per legislative regulations, the insurance companies have to determine the exact degree of fault which has to be assigned to each of the drivers involved in the accident. The purposes for that are variable bust most importantly a determination should be done regarding which property damage coverage is going to apply to the particular accident in order to make sure that the driver who is faulty reimburses the victim as intended by the legislation.

An injury lawyer should refer to the Fault Determination Rules as well as the Insurance Act in order to determine the fault for a particular accident. The Fault Determination Rules are strict provisions which are put in order in order to aid the insurance companies to provide their customers with timely handling of their claims as well as persistent treatment. Once you have filed your report to the insurer, the company has to make an investigation of the particular vehicular accident in order to make a decision regarding the fault as per the provisions set forth in the Fault Determination Rules. The fault is going to be allocated to every participating driver based on the scenario of the accident which most accurately resembles the actuality. If the accident is not within the category of any given scenario then the fault is going to be distributed as per the rules provided by personal injury law. This is why you would need an Injury Lawyer in Waterloo on your side – to make sure that fault is not allocated to you. he or she will work with you to ensure that when you are not at fault, there is no reason to hold you liable for it.

The fact is that a driver can be allocated anywhere in the range of 100% and zero percent fault in a particular vehicular accident. If you are given more than zero per cent you would have an “at-fault” accident on the record kept by your insurance company. This is going to directly impact your premium. An Injury Lawyer in Waterloo should also make a thorough inspection of your insurance policy in order to check how the “at-fault” reflects on the calculation ration and how this will affect the amount of your compensatory damages. It’s also a defending mechanism for attorneys who are representing the perpetrators.